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Do you remember when Gordon Brown sold much of the UK’s gold reserves? Not a good move that, since the yellow metal soared in price soon afterwards.

Then again, back then gold was not fashionable. Keynes called it a barbarous relic, and for a while during the noughties, that description seemed about right. Could Brown have known how much things were going to change?

They did change, and gold became many investors’ best friend.

The thing about gold is psychology. You can’t do much with it, other than look pretty when you wear it – although it is a good semi-conductor. But because of gold’s history, and its presence in our psyche, it is seen as safe, really safe, safer than houses, as safe in fact as gold.

But the yellow metal has not being doing as well of late. Back in the summer of 2011 it was trading at about $1,900 a troy ounce, now it is down to around $1,560.

Maybe it is not so safe.

In recent years, the price of gold has been correlated with expectations of US QE. It was seen as a hedge against the dollar as much as anything. The Fed is not so QE friendly these days. The latest minutes revealed that many Fed members felt QE needs to slow down.

But consider this point of view. If gold can’t do much, in times of really big trouble when we need money, why hold on to it?

The combination of austerity, lack of QE and sovereign debts in the Eurozone is combining to tempt many countries to sell their gold.

Cyprus is selling 400 million euros worth. It needs the cash, for obvious reasons. For almost as obvious reasons, it may have timed the sell-off perfectly.

Will other countries follow suit? Is gold going back to being a barbarous relic?

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